Is player instanced housing more of a strain on the server?

I've always been curious about this. People calling for instanced housing are told stuff like "you don't even know how servers work". Would it be MORE of a catastrophe than the neighborhoods we have now? I can't imagine how loading 1 thing into the memory is worse than loading 30. :confused:

I've often wondered why exactly SE has not gone with the instanced housing idea myself. People usually just pass it off as SE wanting the ward system and that's the end of it. Can't help but wonder if there are more technical matters involved that aren't talked about.

At this point the servers are expending twice as many resources in maintaining wards than they are in normal world maps. So yes it would be better to move them to instances and reconfigure the DC to allow for more instance space which is something they've done before a couple times; it doesn't even require new hardware.

But Yoshi has gone on record stating he wants the wards to maintain the community aspect of housing which he thinks will disappear with instance housing. Despite all the difficulties this gives them, they're going to keep using the existing system. I think they also fall into the fallacy that they've sunk so much into this system, they can't throw it out now and just keep throwing more resources at it.

I’m no server tech but you don’t need to be a chef to know when your food isn’t tasty.

In this case, it could have some effects on the servers but still way less than permanent wards (that they keep adding overtime and still doesn’t solve the core issue : lack of supply).

Everyone in the game gets access to an Inn Room that is loaded only when you get in. With your Glamour dresser content, Armoire, orchestrion rolls, retainers etc. Similar to instanced housing like in ESO and other games : it gets loaded when the owner go in or another player visits the house.

If they’re working on Island Sanctuaries to have our Farming Similator, this shows it wouldn’t be that much of an issue. To the contrary, if they went that route for a new feature, it shows they know it’s the best option with their current tools.

But why they’re not going for it regarding housing and allow people to even engage with their store to buy specific furniture or participate more in the game’s virtual economy I have no idea.

It's probably won't be since it doesn't have to load the outdoors for every player in the ward.
But it's a huge undertaking to get in place. Probably would take a whole expansion cycle if not more since they have trouble to allocate resources and find good developers in japan.

Maybe they should increase their dev team to NA but i guess they prefer it in japan for the language barrier and maybe cultural differences.

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Originally Posted by Alien_Gamer

But Yoshi has gone on record stating he wants the wards to maintain the community aspect of housing which he thinks will disappear with instance housing.

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What community aspect? I see others in the ward with my house maybe once every 2-3 months despite being at my house daily and making trips to the MB or vendor for Curious Crop exchange a couple of times a month. My house overlooks the beach in Mist and I never see anyone hanging out on the beach.

From my point of view, I live in an abandoned village. It might be a mostly well-decorated one, but it's still effectively abandoned. There is no community in it. The ward where my FC has its house isn't much better. The FC house is fairly active because we have fairly active members. Move away from the house and it's dead again despite being located right next to Dappled Stalls.

I would be far happier in an instanced plot where i had more freedom to decorate to my liking instead of how I decorate being constrained by system limitations due to 29 other owners I never see.

Where in housing do I see the most players? When I'm standing at the Summoning Bell outside the apartment building where I have the apartments for my characters (only 21 apartments in that building are occupied and 5 of those are mine). It's a rare day I don't see other players teleporting in then almost immediately disappearing inside the building.

Now that adds a little community feeling even if I don't get a chance to talk to those players before they disappear inside. It works because you've got a large number of players being funneled to a small common area. That would have been a much better inspiration for the wards - a central common area that dozens if not hundreds of owners must pass through before entering their instanced estate.

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Originally Posted by True-to-Caesar

I’m no server tech but you don’t need to be a chef to know when your food isn’t tasty.

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Different people have different tastes. Just because onions aren't tasty to me doesn't mean that others don't like them.

The real problem is that regardless of whether your food is tasty or not, it doesn't nothing to help those who are hungry but can't get food. You might choose to share your food but that won't get them the food that is tasty to them when they want it.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

It's probably won't be since it doesn't have to load the outdoors for every player in the ward.
But it's a huge undertaking to get in place. Probably would take a whole expansion cycle if not more since they have trouble to allocate resources and find good developers in japan.

Maybe they should increase their dev team to NA but i guess they prefer it in japan for the language barrier and maybe cultural differences.

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True, it would be a huge undertaking.

But it's also one they should have started on back in Heavensward when the flaws in the ward system were becoming very apparent instead of deciding "we'll just make a new housing district, that will fix things!"

I imagine it must be different on JP servers maybe... or possibly even EU where people live in closer proximity to each other.

I've literally seen 2 people in my same entire ward, ever.

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Originally Posted by Stormfur

I imagine it must be different on JP servers maybe... or possibly even EU where people live in closer proximity to each other.

I've literally seen 2 people in my same entire ward, ever.

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It's not different on the other worlds. If you're running into players in the wards, it's usually because some big FC or RP venue is running an event. There's no reason to be in the wards because there's no content to do there other than player generated content.

Limsa Lower Decks can be used as a great example of why the wards are failing as a community builder. Think about what it looks like right now with players coming and going as they do quests, check the Marketboards, use the Summoning Bells, etc. There's going to be about 200-250 players moving around there during peak play hours for a world.

Now make 48 copies of it and randomly place players into one of those copies as they enter. Instead of seeing 200 players milling around, you're down to 4 or 5. Maybe you'll run into one of them, maybe you won't. Lower Decks is a fairly big place between the Octant, Bulwark Hall, Hawker's Alley, Arcanist Guild and Fisherman's Bottom.

Now change those 48 copies into 192 (the number of wards/subdivisions on a world). Chances are good you're all alone. You're not going to see anyone. Lower Decks will look abandoned.

Dead.

Is it any wonder we feel that way about the wards? There are too many wards spreading out where the players who want to be in housing are at any given time. Even those who are there are usually inside the instanced interiors, not hanging out in the non-instanced ward.

Those who can't buy a house because there aren't any available have even less reason to be in a ward while those who own multiple houses can only be at one of those houses at a time.

And so the wards feel abandoned. Dead.

Until SE can understand these things and the negative effect they have on housing as a player experience, housing in this game will never be anything but a substandard system.

With instanced housing its more of a strain on the servers for SE. Potentially everyone and their mom can have a house which would have a yard with things and an inventory plus a house with several floors and an inventory.

The only benefit is for people at home with a potato pc who dont want neighbors because it blow up their pc having to load all the items in the ward.

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Originally Posted by Juun

With instanced housing its more of a strain on the servers for SE. Potentially everyone and their mom can have a house which would have a yard with things and an inventory plus a house with several floors and an inventory.

The only benefit is for people at home with a potato pc who dont want neighbors because it blow up their pc having to load all the items in the ward.

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You don't understand how instanced housing works (or even instancing in general) if you believe that.

Instanced housing is available right now, as "Apartments".

And for those who think current housing is barren: you obviously don't belong to an active Free Company. Events do not normally occur outside.

Dear Yoshi P, if you happen to read this:

I understand that SE wants the community feel when it comes to housing. Coming from other games such as EverQuest II which had instanced housing: I felt a GREAT sense of community there: But I feel no community here whatsoever. Your neighbor having a horribly decorated yard that you have to stare at every day does not make community. I would craft outside of my house for six hours a day, and in six years: Only one person ever stopped to say hello to me. There is no community in any of that. The fact is, the housing is dividing the community more than ever. There are lots of new FCs with the huge influx of players, but NONE of them can get an FC house. Eventually people leave because of it, and the FC dies before it ever had a chance to start.

Roleplay FCs can't purchase houses for their FCs so that they have a constant place to roleplay: Those FCs also die before they ever get a chance to start.

About 80% of our current playerbase can't buy houses because there aren't any left. Houses on Balmung are sold out within TWO MINUTES of new wards being released. Your lotto system is not going to fix any of those fundamental issues.

Housing needs to be instanced. Every player should be able to purchase a home: Even if you make homes cost more gil than they do now. (Maybe 10 million for a small instead of 3 million to cut down on how many people purchase them.) You can even tie ownership of a house into finishing the MSQ if you'd like. No matter how you go about it, housing should be instanced. Then we can freely visit one another's homes, everyone has the opportunity to have one, everyone is happy. As it stands, there aren't even any apartments available on Balmung. You can never upgrade your apartment so that it's bigger, you can't make a workshop with an apartment. You can't garden, you can't have a ship and a submarine. It just isn't the same.

I believe there are only a few fixes for these issues:
1. If apartments fill up, a new section automatically opens.
1a. Apartments need to be upgradeable, and to have workshops.
1b. FCs should get special apartments that are bigger than normal with all the amenities.

2. Just make housing instanced and never run out of plots. Limit houses and partments to one each per account, per server. Fixed.

P.S. For the first time since EverQuest I, I truly believe that you and your Dev team truly care about your fans and this game. I truly feel as though you listen to us, more than any other game team in existence. So please, we understand that you had a vision for housing, but it just isn't working as you intended and the players aren't happy with it at all. We all want to enjoy the wonderful houses that you and your team brought to life.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Instanced housing is available right now, as "Apartments".

And for those who think current housing is barren: you obviously don't belong to an active Free Company. Events do not normally occur outside.

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Events occurring inside the house instead of outside of the house is why the wards are barren. When you're inside, you're no longer in the ward. You've been relocated to an instance.

I'm part of a fairly active FC. We actually like to hang around the outside of our house to chat over going inside to do it, playing jumping games on the roof, etc. The problem is that we're still at the house. We're not running around populating the ward to make the ward feel like an active place unless someone is excited about their new passenger mount and wants to take people around for a ride. Otherwise, our FC's activity is only at the FC house. Our FC house is active, the ward is not.

Put our FC house in an instance with scenic backdrops for the areas outside the boundaries and it would make no difference to us nor would it make a difference to anyone else who has a house in our ward but never passes by our house to see us there.

I just created an outdoor hot tub for my personal house and have had friends/FC members coming by to check it out. I've spent over 6 hours in the last two days outside of my house chatting with them as they come to see it. Did anyone else wander past my house during those 6 hours? Nope.

Anyone living on the south side of my ward needs to pass by my house to get to the beach if they're doing it on foot. Do I see people passing by on the ordinary days when I'm sitting outside working on my Expert crafting achievements (and I've been working on those achievements 1-2 hours daily for several months)? Nope. Also don't see people hanging on the beach for that matter but even if they were going to the beach, they're more likely to use the aethernet to TP straight there than run/ride past my house.

Right now I'm standing outside my house. A player search tells me that there are a total of 55 players spread among the 48 wards in Mist. All that server space only being used by a handful of players. It's wasteful design.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

You don't understand how instanced housing works (or even instancing in general) if you believe that.

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At times of high congestion the instance servers have occasionally become overloaded, resulting in wait times for entering an instance. I believe instanced housing would count towards that sort of problems, especially since players would be likely to idle at their houses. keeping the instance reserved.

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Originally Posted by tdb

At times of high congestion the instance servers have occasionally become overloaded, resulting in wait times for entering an instance. I believe instanced housing would count towards that sort of problems, especially since players would be likely to idle at their houses. keeping the instance reserved.

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If players were inclined to idle at their housing over other areas, it would already be a problem since house interiors and apartments are instanced. There don't seem to be that many players who choose to do so. They prefer to idle in Limsa/Gridania/Ul'dah if they're not doing other content (and most players are doing the content since their time available to play is limited).

One thing we don't know is whether the instance servers that host housing are the same as the instance servers that host solo duties/dungeons/trials/raids though I've gotten the impression from things said by SE over the years that housing instances are on separate servers (I could be totally wrong in that impression). If they are separate, it's not going to impact anything other than someone being able to go to their housing to idle.

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Originally Posted by Juun

With instanced housing its more of a strain on the servers for SE. Potentially everyone and their mom can have a house which would have a yard with things and an inventory plus a house with several floors and an inventory.

The only benefit is for people at home with a potato pc who dont want neighbors because it blow up their pc having to load all the items in the ward.

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That assumes that all the houses stay in memory. If the house isn't being used (and SE programmed things correctly), it's going to unload from memory and only exist as static data stored in the database and loaded into memory again once you need it.

When Ishgard was being restored, I had hoped to see something like this for player housing (and honestly, there's no reason that older wards couldn't be converted to this as well):

Each house in Ishgard is actually a mini instance. When you choose a house, you buy it at the placard, and there are unlimited instances of that particular plot. Once you purchase it, you can decorate the yard as you see fit, and when you get close enough to the plot, you will see your own decorations. You can enter the house just as you do any other housing plot in the game, and your furnishings are there.

At the same time, any other player can purchase that same plot, and it will behave the same way: they've purchased it, decorated the outside, etc. When they roll up to the house, they see their own outdoor furnishings, of course.

The placard acts the same way as the entrance to the apartments does currently, once you've purchased. You can go to your own instanced house, or perhaps visit another by choosing an open one from the list.

In this way, each player can choose their favored location--is it small and cozy, medium with more space, or large to really show the wealth? Is it near the MB and aetheryte? Is it tucked away private in a corner, or have the most awesome view? Each player can have what they want, without camping, bitterness, or the RNG of some lotto system. The ward (note the singular here) would be full of players at all hours, because on the surface, there is only one ward.

The technology already exists in the game for something like this, it seems. You have apartments that are instanced, and you have the game already showing you things (npcs, airships, etc.) that are not visible to other players if they are not on the same quests. Put those things together, and BAM you have a new instanced housing system.

I'm just baffled at this point as to why SE is so bad at this, when they're so good at everything else.

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Originally Posted by Velisra

I'm just baffled at this point as to why SE is so bad at this, when they're so good at everything else.

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It's cause of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Fallacy_effect and they want to keep something going when it's pretty clear the entire system needs a reset and rethink of the rules that govern it.

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Originally Posted by Almagnus1

It's cause of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Fallacy_effect and they want to keep something going when it's pretty clear the entire system needs a reset and rethink of the rules that govern it.

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See also: Feast. FINALLY they're doing something about that. Maybe housing will be next. We can dream.

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Originally Posted by tdb

At times of high congestion the instance servers have occasionally become overloaded, resulting in wait times for entering an instance. I believe instanced housing would count towards that sort of problems, especially since players would be likely to idle at their houses. keeping the instance reserved.

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Obviously SE would have to devote more money to upgrading their instance servers to handle the load. They're upgrading everything as we speak: And more upgrades need to come with the influx of players.

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Originally Posted by Velisra

When Ishgard was being restored, I had hoped to see something like this for player housing (and honestly, there's no reason that older wards couldn't be converted to this as well):

Each house in Ishgard is actually a mini instance. When you choose a house, you buy it at the placard, and there are unlimited instances of that particular plot. Once you purchase it, you can decorate the yard as you see fit, and when you get close enough to the plot, you will see your own decorations. You can enter the house just as you do any other housing plot in the game, and your furnishings are there.

At the same time, any other player can purchase that same plot, and it will behave the same way: they've purchased it, decorated the outside, etc. When they roll up to the house, they see their own outdoor furnishings, of course.

The placard acts the same way as the entrance to the apartments does currently, once you've purchased. You can go to your own instanced house, or perhaps visit another by choosing an open one from the list.

In this way, each player can choose their favored location--is it small and cozy, medium with more space, or large to really show the wealth? Is it near the MB and aetheryte? Is it tucked away private in a corner, or have the most awesome view? Each player can have what they want, without camping, bitterness, or the RNG of some lotto system. The ward (note the singular here) would be full of players at all hours, because on the surface, there is only one ward.

The technology already exists in the game for something like this, it seems. You have apartments that are instanced, and you have the game already showing you things (npcs, airships, etc.) that are not visible to other players if they are not on the same quests. Put those things together, and BAM you have a new instanced housing system.

I'm just baffled at this point as to why SE is so bad at this, when they're so good at everything else.

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I FULLY agree. Ishgard housing should have been the trial run for instanced housing. They can still do it: And Yoshi P should absolutely consider it. Let Ishgard be your instanced housing trial Yoshi...and I promise you, the results will speak for themselves.

I'm gonna be that guy. I don't care about Yoshi's "thoughts" or "plan". If myself along with the overwhelming majority of the playerbase(a growing number fyi) will never be able to participate in housing because of simple availability, it's a bad system. End of story. I'm frequently deleting/selling housing items I'll never be able to use. On my server you can't even get an apartment because everything is so tapped out.

I wish I had known about the housing situation/overpopulation before I started playing so I could have picked a server with less people.